A Breathtaking View
by Calypso C
Summary: Post season two. In the beginning, she'd try to go back to sleep after she screamed herself awake. Now, she just stared up at the sky and the stars until her body was so exhausted it couldn't expel any energy to dream. I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. She'd referenced that quote once, a long time ago. She'd had no idea how prophetic that statement would become.


The view was breathtaking. The sunset left the entire mountain range covered in red and gold, matching the leaves on the trees. Clouds tinged pink laced the sky and Clarke knew she should appreciate the beauty.

But she'd never been good at that.

The view just made her uncomfortable and weary. It felt open, exposed. The sunset was beautiful and raw and the ghost of her old self twitched in eagerness to capture the view on paper...but she wasn't that girl anymore.

Instead she turned around and continued hiking through the forest. It had been like this for months. Hike, see beautiful landscapes, occasionally run into grounders, and run far, far away.

Her stomach twisted with guilt when she thought of what ( _who)_ she was running from. No matter what forest she camped in, what river she crossed, or what desert she trekked, images from _that night_ haunted her every thought.

In the beginning, she'd try to go back to sleep after she screamed herself awake. Now, she just stared up at the sky and the stars until her body was so exhausted it couldn't expel any energy to dream.

 _I am become death, the destroyer of worlds_. She'd referenced that quote once, a long time ago. She'd had no idea how prophetic that statement would become.

She reached another river. It was slow, barely moving, and there were shallow, wide bits that stayed still, reflecting the sky. She leaned over the water and barely recognized the gaunt girl with sunken eyes. She looked like hell. That's because she was.

The forest was getting dark now, so she set up camp for the night. She leaned against a tree trunk and looked up at the sky. So many stars. Too many to count. Just like the dead.

Her eyes fluttered closed briefly and a different ghost flashed before her eyes. The look on his face, when she'd left. But- no. She couldn't dwell on that now. It would just lead to other musings, about a mother and a mechanic and a warrior and-and-

Clarke took a deep breath. Not now, Clarke, she told herself. Not now.

She'd come so far. Miles and miles and miles. Mountains and valleys, rivers and cliffs.

Something in the woods shifted and Clarke shot to her feet. A face came into view, a pretty face smeared in black makeup.

"No, no, no!" Clarke shouted into the woods. A branch broke behind her. She whipped around and saw a boy with shoulder length hair, slowly bleeding. Her shriek carried on the wind.

Another figure appeared, an old man with white hair, and behind him, countless bodies staring at her with dead eyes. The mountain men. Her mother. Thelonious. Wells. Kane. Octavia.

Clarke sunk to the ground, her face in her hands and sobs wracking her body.

"No, no, no! I tried! _I tried_! I wanted to protect everyone! I wanted to be the good guy!"

The old man stepped forward and stared at her solemnly. _"You have to bear the burden. For your people-for your people! It was you!"_

Clarke felt hysteria rise in her chest. "I had to! I had to!" She looked around wildly at the people congregated. Her eyes landed on a small child. A boy with a backpack. "I am! I am! I'm bearing it!" She clutched her chest as she tried to dragged air into her body. " _For how long?_ "

The old man paused, considering. _"Forever."_ Then he stepped back and the boy with shoulder length hair took his place.

" _You killed me. And for what? An alliance that broke and caused innocent deaths…"_ The boy with shoulder length hair mused and Clarke felt a sharp pain tear at her heart.

The pretty girl with smeared make up stood beside him. _"He's right you know...love is a weakness. But it doesn't kill you. It makes you a_ killer."

Clarke clenched her fists and looked up at the pair staring down at her accusingly. "You're right- I'm-I'm a monster." She sagged to the ground, no tears left. She waited, listening for their replies.

Instead she heard a familiar voice. _"No, you're not. You're human."_

Clarke glanced up. "Bellamy?" She hadn't said, hadn't even thought, his name in so long, but it still flowed off her tongue.

He stood beside Lexa and Finn, dressed in the guard's outfit he'd landed on Earth in. _"You're not a monster."_

Clarke closed her eyes and felt the tears coming back. She opened them, and her voice cracked. "I am. The things I've done…"

" _The things_ we've _done, princess_. _You're not the only one who's done anything to survive."_

Clarke looked at Finn, and for a moment, all she could see was the look on his face as he shot innocent after innocent.

She looked at Lexa and saw her watching her own people burn, saw her retreating back into the forest. She looked at her mother and Thelonious and Kane and saw three hundred and twenty funerals. She looked at President Wallace and the nameless, faceless mountain men standing behind him. Grounders, strung up and drained of life. Her own friends, lying on a table and screaming.

Finally, she looked at Bellamy, and she felt his hand on hers, pulling the lever. _Together_.

"I don't know how to forgive myself," Clarke whispered in a small voice. She hugged her arms to her chest. "And I don't know if I should."

Bellamy took a step backward into the trees. Lexa, Finn, the mountain men, her mother...they all disappeared.

" _You saved us, Clarke."_ Then he disappeared, too.

Clarke knelt shivering in the forest. She tilted her head back and looked at the sky.

She couldn't forgive herself. She didn't forgive Lexa. She didn't forgive President Wallace. How could she?

But she understood.

Clarke climbed to her feet and slipped on her backpack. She wasn't ready to go back, but she wasn't running anymore.

She took a few steps into the forest, before turning around and staring at the spot where Bellamy had appeared.

She forgave Bellamy.

She couldn't forgive herself, not yet, maybe not ever. But she understood, now, that she'd done what she'd had to.

Later that night, under a mostly full moon, Clarke pulled out a pencil and piece of paper, intending to sketch the sunset she'd seen earlier. Instead, she found her hands drawing Bellamy and her sitting against that tree, the day they found the guns. _I forgive you_.

Then, somehow, she was drawing her mother in Mount Weather. Then Raven, Lexa, Finn, Octavia, Lincoln, Monty, Jasper, Wells…

By the time the sun rose, she'd used up all her paper. She carefully folded the drawings and put them in her backpack. One day, she'd share them. One day.

For now, she slung the backpack on her shoulders and kept hiking, giving the sunrise a brief smile.

It was a breathtaking view.


End file.
